Tag: college info geek

What’s changed

Hey guys! So I’m back on this blog to do a little bit of a different post, kind of based off and expanding on the one I made last year about finances. The horrible, ugly, yet fun, and exciting thing that keep us alive everyday. So, if you’d like some background for this post you can check out my long and old one HERE where I talk about how I graduated college debt-free, bought my cars outright, and basically how I was keeping myself afloat after recently moving into my own apartment.

But now that some time has passed, I’ve experienced a bit more on the financial front (both good and bad), I thought it was time to update with some more recommendations and what I’m doing to ensure that I don’t have to sell all my belongings in order to live. And most of all because Ithink financial planning is FUN! There, I said it, you can all shame me for the loser that I am. But, luckily having interest and enjoying financial planning is something that helps protect me in the long run. So, let’s start out with some changes that I’ve made the last year.

so good they can’t ignore you

I recently read The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey and So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport. I did an entire post on Cal’s other book Deep Work which I really loved. When reading these last two books I decided not to write too many notes because you can visit Chris’s site HERE and and neither really had a lot of solid ideas that I haven’t really talked about before.

For Cal’s book (the title of this) it was a collection of stories based around whether people even “had” a passion and if it was worth it to really keep looking for that one “perfectly passionate” job or if putting in the hard work leads to passion. It was an interesting idea and Cal is a big advocate that following your passion is bad advice. His stories chronicle a lot of successful people who created and built the skills needed for a specific job and the passion for the job followed. He also talks a bit about some of his interviewees who actually did follow their so-believed “passion” (in a risky way) and had failed.

The Little Prince

This is what Springboarded the whole April post because I watched the Netflix original movie of this a few months back and was crying by the end of it. Afterwards I knew I wanted to read the book which only took me about 30 minutes. The book and movie are both amazing, gorgeous, heart-wrenching, and inspiring. The animation from the movie is absolutely incredible and if you have a spare 2 hours please allow yourself to watch this movie. It’s also full of amazing quotes like the one above.

prologue

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I posted about a book that I had read and taken notes on. I had this book by Cal Newport on order from the library for probably…2 months before I ever ended up getting it because the waitlist for it was SO long. But once it arrived at my door, I had sat down and read it within 2 days.

I decided I wanted to take notes on this one immediately for this blog, simply because it’s right up my alley and that even from the title I felt that it was blasphemous to NOT read it with a critical eye. Before we begin, I picked this book up because of a podcast I listened to from College Info Geek.

When New Becomes Normal

When visiting the most magical place on earth every day becomes normal. And driving to my Orlando apartment becomes normal. And paying my bills every month becomes normal. When waking up without having to go to college becomes normal. When standing out in the sun for 8 hours in 100* heat index becomes normal. When smiling at every guest and waving to every princess and prince becomes normal. And only needing to make plans based around what I want to do becomes normal. When magical becomes normal.

It’s a weird experience to have been here in Orlando for almost 5 months because it feels so much longer than that. I never knew if living here for real would ever feel “normal” or if I’d always have that uneasiness about living 1200 miles from where I grew up. And when I say normal, I don’t mean to say that it becomes boring. It becomes familiar, and fun, and I feel like I’m apart of it.